WADA to help Kenya form new anti-doping body

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will help create a new anti-doping body in Kenya after a report concluded the East African country has no effective programme to fight drug cheating.

WADA’s announcement on a new Kenyan national anti-doping organisation followed a meeting with Kenyan government officials in Cape Town, South Africa, on Wednesday.

According to WADA’s director general David Howman, who called the meeting ‘constructive’, the national anti-doping agencies from Norway and China will assist Kenya to set up the organisation.

Kenya has been under close scrutiny since German broadcaster ARD alleged in 2012 that doping was common among the country’s famous distance runners.

Kenya has seen a spike in positive tests in recent years, with 18 athletes failing drugs tests from January 2012 to December 2013, according to the doping report. That’s a rate of nearly one a month.

WADA pushed Kenya to investigate the ARD allegations and the long-awaited report was made public last week.